Yesterday as I was walking down the street, a girl around my age stopped me and wanted me to buy a notebook. I immediately felt the spirit leading me to talk to her, so I looked at all of her notebooks and picked out two that she recommended because, "they are very very beautiful." To be honest, I have a bit of a notebook addiction so she didn't have to do much convincing! So I purchased them and complimented her on her English and asked if she would like to meet up sometime. Her whole face lit up and she was so excited! She gave me her phone number and I told her I would get up with her very soon to meet.
One of my hardships lately has been trying to get my hands on a Chinese phone to contact the people we are meeting, so I immediately felt burdened about it when I was in the room. My awesome team them informed me that they have been setting a meeting time immediately with them so they don't have to worry about waiting for a phone. So I waited for a second, and decided I had to run back down to the street to find her and set a meeting time! I walked down the road a bit and saw her friend who didn't speak as much English. I was trying to ask her where Duling (my new friend) went, but she couldn't understand me… Then out of nowhere, Duling comes running down the road shouting, "I'm here! I'm here!" I told her I may have a hard time borrowing a phone and asked if she wanted to set a time to meet right then. It literally took us like 30 minutes to get on the same page (and figure out it was tomorrow and not tomorrows tomorrow) but we FINALLY decided we could meet today at 11:00 for lunch. She insisted on buying me Chinese dumplings so I thanked her and agreed.
Side note… I love food, and I love free food even more… But the Chinese dumplings we have had so far have been our least favorite food, so I was like, "alright Jesus, I'll do it for you…" And had no idea what he was planning.
I came out at 11:00 the next day (which was today) and she wasn't there. The rest of my team was planning to go to a different ministry site today, so I asked Hannah if she would come with me to lunch. We waited, and waited, and waited and my heart was SINKING because I was so excited about my first one on one date and because typically in china it's very important to be on time. But, in true Duling fashion, she came running up from the bus again shouting, "I'm here! I'm here! I'm so so sorry!" After 100000 apology hugs and her worrying about me being cold waiting for her, and a few more hugs and some more apologies… We assured her that it was ok and we were not upset, and she and her friend locked arms with Hannah and I and we walked toward what I assumed was a casual restaraunt like we had been to before. I was wrong… And underdressed. She took us to this LEGIT restaraunt where her sister worked, to a private dining room, in the basement of the building. We were so amazed! She sat us down and asked if we liked pork, or beef, or vegetables (pronouncing every syllable of ve-ge-ta-bles), and proceeded to order the "dumplings". Within a few minutes, we had pork, beef dumplings, Chinese mushroom salad, Chinese noodle salad, vegetable dumplings, pork dumplings, fried shrimp dumplings and some kind of Chinese tea. Holy calories… Everything was absolutely delicious and it was NOT the dumplings we had been eating! She kept saying, "Eat more! Eat more!" Hannah was about to die from eating so much, but we didn't want to be rude! So we ate and ate forever! We spoke for nearly two hours and she kept saying how she was afraid we would go back to America and she would never get to chat with us again. Finally, after family, food, boys, education, and American fashion, she asked us why we were in china and we were able to share with them about how we are Christians and helping the church in china. We have a card with the addresses of the four churches they have planted here, but the one closest to her had services during one of her classes so she couldn't go. But she said that it was good to be Christian and that she would like to meet us again. The next time we meet we will go over the gospel so in the mean time be in HEAVY prayer for their hearts that God would go ahead of us, break the confusion from language barriers, and the Holy Spirit would move in their hearts.
We finished dinner, and they asked us where we wanted to go. We told them that anywhere was fine so they launched into a Chinese conversation about what we could do. (Side note! Our first day in china, we went to McDonald's and got ice cream. I'm absolutely fascinated with learning Chinese so I asked the worker how you said ice cream in Chinese and she said "Bingq?l?n" which kind of sounds like "ping shilling". Anyway I went around all day saying "Bingq?l?n!" And it was awesome). Back to the conversation! They're chatting away and she stops and looks at me and is like, "ummm… Uhh… Bingq?l?n?" And I was like, "ICE CREAM!"
"Yes! Yes! Is ice cream!" So they bought all our lunch, and then treated us to ice cream.
These girls are students. They're probably not wealthy, but they wanted to honor us by offering us the best they could. Praise Jesus we have something even BETTER to offer them! Whether they make a decision before we leave or not, I will definitely continue praying for them and staying in contact because we have definitely planted a seed.
Prayer for today!
-Our precious new friends, who offered us everything they could. That the Holy Spirit would begin softening their hearts and give them a burning interest in Jesus and the joy we have.
-For the next time we meet and share the gospel, that we could communicate everything we need to. This one is all on the spirit! Try explaining grace to someone who doesn't speak English!
-We've had a little bit of stomach problems going around the squad, so pray for us to all be healthy so we can use every second we have here to bring the kingdom!
